Ducklings rescued by firefighters from storm drain in Franklin Twp.

NINE DUCKLINGS were rescued from a storm drain in the Walmart parking lot in Franklin Township by volunteers from Quakertown Fire Company. (Photo courtesy of Quakertown Fire Company)

FRANKLIN TWP. — Nine ducklings that fell into a storm drain in the Walmart plaza here were rescued by Quakertown Fire Company last week as the ducklings’ mother anxiously waited for the return of the offspring that had slipped through the grating.

A customer walking through the parking lot heard the family of mallards quacking in the early afternoon on June 27, spotted the ducklings in the storm drain and called 9-1-1.
Quakertown Fire Company sent five volunteers to the rescue. “Mom wasn’t far off,” said Chief Brad Patkochis, who saw the mother duck watching him and other rescuers from a distance. “She was making a lot of noise.”

After removing the grate, a firefighter climbed into the 5-foot-deep drain and scooped the ducklings into a cardboard box. The nine ducklings were released into the grass under a tree near the parking lot, where they were reunited with their mother, Patkochis said.

This was the fourth time in three years that the fire department has rescued ducklings from storm drains in ShopRite and Walmart parking lots here, he said.

Ducks frequent the plaza, perhaps foraging for scraps of food dropped by customers. Adult birds can walk across grates easily. But “the little ducks are so small they try to walk across and they just fall through,” he said.

Last August, ducklings that were removed from the drain in the morning had to be rescued again that same afternoon, he said.